Children an stand near the scene of explosion in a mobile phone market in Potiskum, Nigeria, Monday Jan. 12, 2015. Two female suicide bombers targeted the busy marketplace on Sunday. (AP Photo/Adamu Adamu)

On Saturday, a girl walked into a crowded market in Maiduguri, Nigeria. When she was stopped to be screened, the explosives that were strapped to her went off, killing her and at least 20 other people. She is believed to have been a suicide bomber sent by the terrorists of Boko Haram, the same group that was responsible for the kidnapping of the 275 Chibok schoolgirls.

On January 3, 2015, Boko Haram men went to the city of Baga and killed up to an estimated 2,000 people, mostly civilians. They ravaged the town, burning down buildings and leaving the largest body count they have yet. This is their deadliest act in their reign of terror in Northern Nigeria, and 30,000 people have been displaced because of this attack, trying to find safety. Some swam to nearby Chad, and many died on the way there.

It took at least 5 days after it happened for us to find out about it. And 8 days later, it is still not headline news in the United States.

PARIS (AP) — More than 40 world leaders and what government officials say were between 1.2 and 1.6 million people streamed into the heart of Paris on Sunday for a rally of national unity to honor the 17 victims of three days of terror. French officials claimed that the march is the largest demonstration in the nation’s history, with the Interior Ministry calling the event “unprecedented” and stating that around 3.7 million people across France took place in rallies.

The aftermath of the attacks remained raw, with video emerging of one of the gunmen killed during police raids pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group and detailing how the attacks were going to unfold. Also, a new shooting was linked to that gunman, Amedy Coulibaly, who was killed Friday along with the brothers behind a massacre at satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in nearly simultaneous raids by security forces.”Today, Paris is the capital of the world,” said French President Francois Hollande . “Our entire country will rise up toward something better.”

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were among the leaders attending, as were top representatives of Russia and Ukraine.

Rallies were also planned in London, Madrid and New York — all attacked by al-Qaida-linked extremists — as well as Cairo, Sydney, Stockholm, Tokyo and elsewhere.

People take part in a Unity rally Marche Republicaine in Paris on January 11, 2015 in tribute to the 17 victims of a three-day killing spree by homegrown Islamists.

“We are all Charlie, we are all police, we are all Jews of France,” Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared on Saturday, referring to the victims of the attacks that included employees at Charlie Hebdo, shoppers at a kosher grocery and three police officers.

The three days of terror began Wednesday when brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi stormed the newsroom of Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people. Al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen said it directed the attack by the masked gunmen to avenge the honor of the Prophet Muhammad, a frequent target of the weekly’s satire. On Thursday, police said Coulibaly killed a policewoman on the outskirts of Paris and on Friday, the attackers converged.

People hold signs and the French flag as they gather at the Place de la Nation during the Unity rally Marche Republicaine on January 11, 2015 in Paris.

While the Kouachi brothers holed up in a printing plant near Charles de Gaulle airport, Coulibaly seized hostages inside a kosher market. It all ended at dusk Friday with near-simultaneous raids at the printing plant and the market that left all three gunmen dead. Four hostages at the market were also killed.

Five people who were held in connection with the attacks were freed late Saturday, leaving no one in custody, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office. The widow of the man who attacked the kosher market is still being sought and was last traced near the Turkey-Syrian border.

Early Sunday, police in Germany detained two men suspected of an arson attack against a newspaper that republished the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. No one was injured in that attack.

French President Francois Hollande (C) welcomes German Vice Chancellor (L) and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (R) on January 11, 2015.

“The terrorists want two things: they want to scare us and they want to divide us. We must do the opposite. We must stand up and we must stay united,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told French TV channel iTele on Sunday.

It was France’s deadliest terrorist attack in decades, and the country remains on high alert while investigators determine whether the attackers were part of a larger extremist network. More than 5,500 police and soldiers were being deployed on Sunday across France, about half of them to protect the march. The others were guarding synagogues, mosques, schools and other sites around France.

“I hope that we will again be able to say we are happy to be Jews in France,” said Haim Korsia, the chief rabbi in France, who planned to attend the rally.

“I hope that at the end of the day everyone is united. Everyone, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists,” added Zakaria Moumni, who was at Republique early Sunday. “We are humans first of all. And nobody deserves to be murdered like that. Nobody.”

At an international conference in India, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the world stood with the people of France “not just in anger and in outrage, but in solidarity and commitment to the cause of confronting extremism and in the cause that extremists fear so much and that has always united our countries: freedom.”

People gather on the Place de la Republique (Republic Square) in Paris before the start of a Unity rally Marche Republicaine on January 11, 2015.

Posthumous video emerged Sunday of Coulibaly, who prosecutors said was newly linked by ballistics tests to a third shooting — the Wednesday attack on a jogger in a Paris suburb that left the 32-year-old man gravely injured. In the video, Coulibaly speaks fluent French and broken Arabic, pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group and detailing the terror operation he said was about to unfold.

The Kouachi brothers claimed the attacks were planned and financed by al-Qaida in Yemen.

MAIDUGURI, Jan 2 (Reuters) – Gunmen abducted 40 boys and young men from a remote village in northeast Nigeria in a raid that residents and a security source blamed on Boko Haram, the Islamist group that has gained worldwide notoriety for mass kidnappings.

Witness Mohammed Zarami said the gunmen arrived at the village of Malari around 8 p.m. on Wednesday, heavily armed but did not fire shots or kill anyone.

“People ran out of their houses in fear but they warned no one should disobey them,” Zarami told Reuters in the northeast city of Maiduguri, where he had fled to on foot.

“They took away over 40 (male) youths mostly between the ages of 15 to 23. As I am talking to you now, there is no youth in our village,” he said.

Boko Haram fighters have abducted hundreds of people in the past year. Boys are recruited as fighters and the girls as sex slaves, security officials say.

Its five-year-old uprising for an Islamic state is the gravest security threat to Africa’s top economy.

Parents of 200 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Islamist rebels in April have said they are appealing to the United Nations for help after losing hope that the Nigerian government would rescue them.

A man claiming to be Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau at the end of October said in a video that the girls had been “married off” to Boko Haram commanders. (Reporting by Lanre Ola; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

MOGADISHU, Jan 2 (Reuters) – Somalian al Shabaab militants attacked a military base in the outskirts of the town of Baidoa on Friday morning, killing at least seven soldiers, a Somali military official said.

The attack came two days after the United States said it had killed the chief of al Shabaab’s intelligence and security wing, Tahliil Abdishakur, in a drone strike. Al Shabaab seeks to topple the Western-backed Mogadishu government and impose its own strict version of Islamic law.

“Al Shabaab attacked our base unexpectedly, early in the morning today. We lost seven soldiers,” Captain Ahmed Idow, a Somali military officer, told Reuters by telephone from Baidoa.

Idow said Somali soldiers killed three al Shabaab insurgents during the attack.

A spokesman for al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab said the group had briefly seized the base and killed more than 10 soldiers. Al Shabaab often cites a higher death toll than the number given by officials.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The war in Afghanistan, fought for 13 bloody years and still raging, came to a formal end Sunday with a quiet flag-lowering ceremony in Kabul that marked the transition of the fighting from U.S.-led combat troops to the country’s own security forces.

In front of a small, hand-picked audience at the headquarters of the NATO mission, the green-and-white flag of the International Security Assistance Force was ceremonially rolled up and sheathed, and the flag of the new international mission called Resolute Support was hoisted.

U.S. Gen. John Campbell, commander of ISAF, commemorated the 3,500 international soldiers killed on Afghan battlefields and praised the country’s army for giving him confidence that they are able to take on the fight alone.

“Resolute Support will serve as the bedrock of an enduring partnership” between NATO and Afghanistan, Campbell told an audience of Afghan and international military officers and officials, as well as diplomats and journalists.

“The road before us remains challenging, but we will triumph,” he added.

Beginning Jan. 1, the new mission will provide training and support for Afghanistan’s military, with the U.S. accounting for almost 11,000 of the 13,500 members of the residual force.

President Ashraf Ghani, who took office in September, signed bilateral security agreements with Washington and NATO allowing the ongoing military presence. The move has led to a spike in violence, with the Taliban claiming it as an excuse to step up operations aimed at destabilizing his government.

ISAF was set up after the U.S.-led invasion as an umbrella for the coalition of around 50 nations that provided troops and took responsibility for security across the country. It ends with 2,224 American soldiers killed, according to an Associated Press tally.

The mission peaked at 140,000 troops in 2010. U.S. President Barack Obama ordered a surge to root the insurgents out of strategically important regions, notably in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, where the Taliban had its capital from 1996 to 2001.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid called Sunday’s event a “defeat ceremony” and said the insurgents’ fight would continue.

“Since the invasion in 2001 until now, these events have been aimed at changing public opinion, but we will fight until there is not one foreign soldier on Afghan soil and we have established an Islamic state,” he said.

Obama recently expanded the role of U.S. forces remaining in the country, allowing them to extend their counter-terrorism operations to the Taliban, as well as al-Qaida, and to provide ground and air support for Afghan forces when necessary for at least the next two years.

In a tacit recognition that international military support is still essential for Afghan forces, national security adviser Mohammad Hanif Atmar told the gathered ISAF leaders: “We need your help to build the systems necessary to ensure the long-term sustainability of the critical capabilities of our forces.”

Afghans have mixed feelings about the drawdown of foreign troops. With the deteriorating security situation, many believe the troops are needed to back up the Afghan effort to bring peace after more than three decades of continual war.

“At least in the past 13 years we have seen improvements in our way of life — freedom of speech, democracy, the people generally better off financially,” said 42-year-old shop keeper Gul Mohammad.

But the soldiers are still needed “at least until our own forces are strong enough, while our economy strengthens, while our leaders try to form a government,” he said.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said that Afghanistan’s 350,000-member security forces are ready to take on the insurgency alone, despite complaints by officials that they lack the necessary assets, such as air support, medical-evacuation systems and intelligence.

On Sunday, he said that ISAF’s mandate was “carried out at great cost but with great success.”

“We have made our own nations safer by denying safe haven to international terrorists. We have made Afghanistan stronger by building up from scratch strong security forces. Together we have created the conditions for a better future for millions of Afghan men, women and children,” he said.

As Afghan forces assume sovereignty, the country is without a Cabinet three months after Ghani’s inauguration, and economic growth is near zero due to the reduction of the international military presence and other aid. The United States spent more than $100 million on reconstruction in Afghanistan, on top of the $1 trillion war.

This year is set to be the deadliest of the war, according to the United Nations, which expects civilian casualties to hit 10,000 for the first time since the agency began keeping records in 2008. Most of the deaths and injuries were caused by Taliban attacks, the U.N. said.

In the latest insurgent violence, two teenage boys were killed late Saturday in the Nirkh district of eastern Wardak province when a rocket was fired near a children’s volleyball match, an official said. Another five children, ages 11 to 14, were wounded by shrapnel, said the governor’s spokesman Attaullah Khogyani. He blamed the Taliban.

In Kapisa, also in the east, Gov. Abdul Saboor Wafa’s office said eight insurgents were killed Saturday night in an army counter-insurgency operation.

This has also been a deadly year for Afghanistan’s security forces — army, paramilitary and police — with around 5,000 deaths recorded so far. Most of those deaths, or around 3,200, have been police officers, according to Karl Ake Roghe, the outgoing head of EUPOL, the European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan, which funds and trains a police force of 157,000.

From the war in Gaza to the crisis in Ukraine, the rise of the Islamic State in the Middle East and the disappearance of 43 students in Mexico, 2014 was a year of major political and economic developments across the globe.

But the barrage of breaking news can make it hard to see the forest through the trees. Take a look at these four crucial international developments in 2014 that may have slipped under your radar.

Crisis In The Mediterranean

On Sept. 10, human traffickers sank a smuggling boat off the coast of Malta in the Mediterranean. Aboard were 500 Syrians, Egyptians and Sudanese who had scraped together massive sums to try to make it into Europe.

A few days later, more than 200 African emigrants were reported to have drowned when their boat sank off the Libyan coast. “It was without any doubt the deadliest weekend ever in the Mediterranean,” Carlotta Sami of the United Nations’ Refugee Agency said at the time.

UNHCR warned earlier this month that 2014 saw a record number of people risking their lives at sea in search of asylum or migration. According to the organization, at least 348,000 people have undertaken such treacherous journeys since January, an estimated 207,000 of them across the Mediterranean. UNHCR said that’s almost three times the previous record set in 2011 at the height of the Libyan civil war, when about 70,000 made the trip hoping to reach Europe. Asylum-seekers fleeing the deadly conflict in Syria made up the biggest group of refugees this year.

In its December announcement, UNHCR said many aboard the ships were killed or fell victim to international organized crime. An estimated 3,400 migrants and asylum-seekers have lost their lives in the Mediterranean this year. And aid organizations have warned that the toll may rise. Italy had funded a large-scale search-and-rescue operation after a deadly accident on the coast of Lampedusa in 2013, but suspended the mission last month. The EU operation that is expected to fill part of the gap has a smaller budget than the Italian operation, and will focus on border protection instead of search and rescue.

“You can’t stop a person who is fleeing for their life by deterrence, without escalating the dangers even more,” UNHCR High Commissioner Antonio Guterres said. He stressed that instead, the root causes of the crisis need to be addressed. “This means looking at why people are fleeing, what prevents them from seeking asylum by safer means, and what can be done to crack down on the criminal networks who prosper from this, while at the same time protecting their victims.”

Humanitarian organizations and the United Nations raised the alarm about security in the Central African Republic this spring, warning that deteriorated relations between the ethnic communities in the country had put the nation at risk of genocide.

The crisis had started a full year before, when the Muslim Seleka rebel group took over the capital Bangui, and its leader Michel Djotodia claimed the presidency. Christian anti-Balaka self-defense groups formed in opposition to the Muslim fighters. Djotodia fled to Benin in January, and the well-respected mayor of Bangui took over. Yet the change of leadership proved insufficient to restore security.

While the arrival of international troops has stabilized the situation slightly, daily violent clashes have continued. Reuters estimates more than 3,000 people have been killed in the country since December 2013. According to The Associated Press, as many as 5,000 people have lost their lives between December 2013 and September 2014.

UNHCR estimates that one-fourth of the country’s population has been internally displaced since December 2013. At the peak of the violence, more than 930,000 people had left their homes. While that number declined to 508,000 by August, more than half of the country’s 4.5 million residents remain dependent on emergency assistance.

Members of the Muslim community demonstrate calling for the disarmament of Anti Balaka factions and for peace in the PK5 district of Bangui, Central African Republic, Saturday May 31, 2014. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

Rebels Took Over The Yemeni Capital

Houthi fighters swept through the Yemeni capital Sanaa in September and wrested control from most major government buildings in just a few days. Weeks later, the armed Shiite group of the Zaidi sect and Yemen’s other political factions agreed to a U.N.-brokered deal for a new government and end to the deadly fighting.

The takeover of Sanaa and the deal that followed radically changed Yemen’s political landscape. Reuters writes the Houthis have tightened their grip on state institutions, including the main ports, the defense ministry and a state oil company, There are reports of Houthis running illegal detention facilities and operating their own court system.

Yet the deal has failed to bring back stability. Reuters notes that while the Houthis initially received public approval for their stance against corruption and their relatively liberal proposals, many now disapprove of their fierce tactics. In addition, al Qaeda in Yemen, the Sunni terrorist organization that considers the Shiite Houthis heretics, has launched a bloody campaign against the rebels, which includes raids and suicide bombings. Reuters aptly summarizes that the fall of the capital has widened Yemen’s tribal, regional and political divisions and has raised concerns whether Yemen as a state may unravel.“The inability of state forces to check the Houthis’ ascent or dampen sectarianism has galvanized separatist groups who spot an opportunity to push their own agendas.”

A new political party has taken Spain by storm this year, finishing second in recent exit polls, less than one year after its formation.

Polls published in early December indicated that Podemos — which means “we can” in Spanish — would bring in 25 percent of the vote if elections were held at the time of publication.

The results indicated a slight loss for Podemos from a historic result in November, when polls put Podemos ahead of both the People’s party, currently in power, and the socialists leading the opposition. The Guardian notes that those two parties together carried 75 percent of votes in the past.

Podemos was formed in January, in the wake of the 2011 indignados movement. It is led by Pablo Iglesias, a university lecturer in his 30s with a signature black pony tail.

The party stands for an end to traditional politics and corruption. Its signature proposals include higher minimum wages, a 35-hour workweek, a guaranteed minimum income, and lowering the retirement age — plans that radically differ from the policies of many European nations.

El Pais explains that most criticism of the new party focused on its economic program, with critics saying it was too vague and too radical. The newspaper notes that the party has since altered some of its proposals, including a Spanish default on the country’s debts.

New Podemos Party leader Pablo Iglesias speaks during a meeting to announce the elected Podemos Party members at Nuevo Apolo Theatre on November 15, 2014 in Madrid, Spain. (Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images)

Civilians who fled their homes following an attack by Islamist militants, in Gwoza arrived at the camp for internally displaced people in Yola, Nigeria, Thursday Nov. 27, 2014. Thousands of people have fled their homes in recent times due to Boko Haram attacks . (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba )

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — Islamic extremists in northeast Nigeria are turning their guns on elderly people, killing more than 50 this week in a new tactic that has instilled more fear in areas the militants call an Islamic caliphate.

Residents from five villages say people too elderly to flee Gwoza local government area are being rounded up and taken to two schools where the militants open fire on them. The villages are about 130 kilometers (80 miles) southeast of Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.

“What they are doing now is to assemble the aged people — both men and women … and then they just open fire on some of them,” said Muhammed Gava, a spokesman for civil defense groups in the area. More than 50 people had been killed at Government Day Secondary School in Gwoza, he said.

A villager who had fled said more elderly people are being gathered and shot at Uvaghe Central Primary School. The villager spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of endangering his trapped parents.

Government officials did not immediately comment on the reports.

Nigeria’s military said soldiers are patrolling “in search of terrorists” and “to verify abductions” Friday around the village of Gumburi, where witnesses say extremists kidnapped at least 185 people a week ago.

Nigeria’s military and government have been criticized for their failure to rescue 219 schoolgirls kidnapped from a town near Gumburi in April.

In separate attacks Friday, witnesses said Boko Haram struck at Damagum and Mamudo towns in Yobe state, bombing government buildings, the police station and military barracks.

The extremists suffered a setback when they attacked soldiers guarding a power station in Borno state, according to an engineer who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. He said soldiers were warned in advance that the extremists were advancing and engaged the militants in fierce fighting that killed at least 70.

Extremists have killed thousands of people in a 5-year uprising that has driven some 1.6 million from their homes.

WASHINGTON — The deal that freed an American jailed in Cuba and ended 53 years of diplomatic estrangement between the United States and Cuba was blessed at the highest levels of the Holy See but cut in the shadowy netherworld of espionage.

A personal appeal from Pope Francis, American officials said, was critical in persuading Cuba’s president, Raúl Castro, to agree to a prisoner swap and the freeing of the American aid worker Alan P. Gross. The pope, officials said, acted as a “guarantor” that both sides would live up to the terms of a deal reached in secret.

The most tangible breakthrough, however, came almost a year into the talks, when the United States, at loggerheads with Cuba, proposed to swap three Cuban agents jailed in the United States for a Cuban working for American intelligence who had been held in a jail in Cuba for nearly 20 years.

What’s next for Assata Shakur? With Havana’s humanitarian release of American Alan Gross—A USAID worker who had been imprisoned in Cuba for five years on accusations of espionage—President Obama announced a resumption in relations between the two countries after 53 years.

“Neither the American nor the Cuban people are well-served by a rigid policy that’s rooted in events that took place before most of us were born,” Obama said Wednesday in his White House speech. “It’s time for a new approach.”

In exchange for the Gross’s release, the U.S. released the three remaining members of the “Cuban Five,” Cuban citizens who were convicted of spying in Miami in 2001. Cuba also released 53 political prisoners, and a valuable U.S. spy who is a Cuban native.

President Barack Obama spoke Wednesday on U.S. relations with Cuba, hours after American Alan Gross was released from a Cuban prison, where he’d been for five years.

Gross was accompanied back to the U.S. by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). The Cuban government had detained Gross for setting up satellite Internet access as a subcontractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, and charged him with violating the country’s “territorial integrity.”

“Today, Alan returned home, reunited with his family at long last,” Obama said in remarks delivered from the White House.

Three Cubans who had been jailed in the U.S. for spying, along with a U.S. intelligence source who had been jailed in Cuba for more than 20 years, were also released on Wednesday. Obama said that U.S. source was released “separately” from Gross.

Several lawmakers were quick to criticize the release of the Cuban spies, including Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.).

“Trading Mr. Gross for three convicted criminals sets an extremely dangerous precedent,” Menendez said in a statement. “It invites dictatorial and rogue regimes to use Americans serving overseas as bargaining chips.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) also criticized the spies’ release, saying during an interview on Fox News that it “sets a very dangerous precedent,” and calling the normalization of relations with Cuba “absurd.”

“This is going to do absolutely nothing to further human rights and democracy in Cuba,” Rubio told the AP earlier Wednesday. “But it potentially goes a long way in providing the economic lift that the Castro regime needs to become permanent fixtures in Cuba for generations to come.”

Obama addressed these critics in his remarks on Wednesday.

“I respect your passion and share you commitment to liberty and democracy,” the president said.

Obama also said he’s “under no illusion about the continued barriers to freedom” Cuban citizens still face.

“I do not expect the changes I am announcing today to bring about a transformation of Cuban society overnight,” Obama said.

Officials said Wednesday that talks will begin to normalize full U.S.-Cuba diplomatic relations, according to the AP. The U.S. also will aim to open an embassy in Havana in the coming months.

“We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests, and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries,” Obama said Wednesday, noting he’s instructed Secretary of State John Kerry to begin the discussions to re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba.